For my Floss.
1. I slice my finger open, the moment marked as I speak with
one of my sisters on the phone. I have reached
my hand into sudsy water, and there was a knife.
“Oh my God!” I say, my dishwater turning pink.
“Wuddja do?” she says.
She is one of my four older siblings, and I am the youngest. What I did means different things to both of
us.
My fingerprint once again altered, I look into the wound and
see the meat of me. I think the meat of
us should stay on the inside of the body, not outside, unless it’s needed for grander
purposes, such as lunch for your former seatmates in the Andes on a snowy day. I know that when your insides are on the
outside, it stings.
I opt not to get one or two or five jillion stitches in my
finger. Instead, I live officially cloven.
I try to keep the two sides clean and pressed
together with Band-aids. I expect regeneration
and nothing less.
My Band-aid is not on when the larger piece of finger hanging off of me snags on an
afghan. Pain rips through my heart before
exploding down my limbs and out my fingers and toes. I have just finished Elie
Weisel's Night and am deep into a
slave-era narrative for my school’s book club, but still, I think that my pain
must be greater.
2. And just so you know, I'm still
with Jackson Brown.
My knees are still weak from the first five words. I hope you are regenerating without further incident :)
ReplyDelete